Primeval tech continues to be the bane of Darwinism.

 Grand Central Station and Beyond: Molecular Machines Visualized in 3D 

David Coppedge 

Cryo-electron microscopy is allowing cell biologists to see irreducibly complex molecular machines in all their three-dimensional glory. We are privileged in our day to see things that earlier microscopists could not have dreamt were possible thanks to super-resolution imaging technologies. 

Cilia Update 

Molecular biologists at the University of Basel boasted this month about discovering a “miniature train station” at the base of the cilium. Evolution News readers may know that biologist Michael Behe spoke of these trains years ago in his first two books, based on what was then known about how cilia are constructed. A few attempts to animate cilia with earlier cryo-EM views, such as this one at XVIVO, reveal the parts of cilia and flagella and how they operate once constructed. But there’s nothing like imaging them with real microscopes at near-atomic resolution to see how they are built. The imagery of train stations seems appropriate. 

Cilia are firmly anchored to the cell at their base. “Here is the start station for cilia transport,” explains Hugo van den Hoek, first author of the study. “Trains are assembled here, loaded with cargo and placed on the rails.”There are a total of nine different rails inside cilia, called microtubules. Each of them consists of two tracks, one for outbound trains and one for inbound. The trains transport proteins such as signaling molecules and building materials to the tip of the cilia. At their destination station, the train is unloaded and disassembled. 

A combination of cryo-EM tomography and fluorescence microscopy allowed the research team to observe grand central station.  

“This powerful combination of technologies has allowed us to reconstruct the first molecular model of the ciliary base and observe how it regulates the assembly and entry of these large protein trains,” explains Paul Guichard.  

Anyone sense foresight here? Functional information?

The paper in Science by Van den Hoek et al., “In situ architecture of the ciliary base reveals the stepwise assembly of intraflagellar transport trains,” continues with the train metaphor over 90“Their findings elucidate how intraflagellar transport trains assemble before they enter cilia and demonstrate the possibility of visualizing dynamic events with molecular resolution inside native cells.” times

Illustrating Behe’s claim back in 1996 that scientific papers never explain how these machines could be made by a Darwinian process, this paper is again silent about evolution. It only notes that cilia and flagella are “evolutionarily conserved eukaryotic organelles” which implies that they appeared already working and have not evolved significantly since. They also mention serious diseases that result from faulty assembly of these exquisite ATP-powered moving machines. This also speaks to the impossibility of chance formatio

Readers can feast their eyes on the detailed images coming from these powerful new imaging technologies 

“Their findings elucidate how intraflagellar transport trains assemble before they enter cilia and demonstrate the possibility of visualizing dynamic events with molecular resolution inside native cells.” 

Cilia were also highlighted recently in news from Washington University. Engineers there would like to understand how cilia initiate their well-known beat motions to get ideas for treating ciliopathies and, perhaps, mimicking cilia in engineered machines for drug delivery or chemical sensing. 

Cilia are tiny, hair-like structures on cells throughout our bodies that beat rhythmically to serve a variety of functions when they are working properly, including circulating cerebrospinal fluid in brains and transporting eggs in fallopian tubes.

Defective cilia can lead to disorders including situs inversus — a condition where a person’s organs develop on the side opposite of where they usually are. 

Their work was published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 

Kir2.1: An Elegant Ion Channel 

Cryo-electron microscopy unveiled another marvelous molecular machine to the eyes of researchers at the Sorbonne. It’s called Kir2.1, part of a family of potassium channels that create the voltage used by neurons. Here’s what Kir2.1 does for us: 

Inward-rectifier potassium (Kir) channels are a group of integral membrane proteins that selectively control the permeation of K+ (potassium) ions across cell membranes. They are particular in that the channels conduct K+ions easier in the inward direction (into the cell) than in the outward direction (out of the cell). The small outward K+ current through Kir channels controls the resting membrane potential and membrane excitability, regulates cardiac and neuronal electrical activities, couples insulin secretion to blood glucose levels, and maintains electrolyte balance. 

The source paper by Fernandes et al. was published open access in Science Advances allowing readers to see the beautiful images of this channel with its four-part structure and selectivity filter. They claim it is the “first structure” published of Kir2.1. The average resolution is at 4.3 Angstroms, with some parts at 3.7 Angstroms. Considering that the width of a hydrogen atom is about 1 Angstrom, that’s amazing.  

This is the first time that the entire human Kir2.1 channel has been resolved at high resolution; it is also the first cryo-EM structure of a Kir2 channel. 

How does the channel work as a rectifier, creating a voltage between inner and outer membranes? And how do they know when to act? 

The inward-rectification mechanism results from a block on the cytoplasmic side of the channels by endogenous polyamines and Mg2+ that plug the channel pore at depolarized potentials, resulting in decreased outward currents. The blockers are then removed from the pore when the K+ ions flow into the cell at hyperpolarized potentials. This voltage-dependent block results in efficient conduction of current only in the inward direction. In addition to being inwardly rectifying, Kir channels respond to a variety of intracellular messengers that directly control the channel gating, including phosphoinositides (PIPs), G proteins (Kir3 channels), adenosine 5′-triphosphate (Kir6 channels), and changes in pH (Kir1 channels). The Kir family is encoded by 16 genes (KCNJ1 to KCNJ18) and classified in seven subfamilies (Kir1 to Kir7). 

The Kir2.1 channel doesn’t just sit there in the membrane selecting potassium ions; it moves! It flexes and bends during operation. Readers can download six movies of the machine undergoing its precise conformational changes. 

As the channel flexes, specific contacts between amino acids are made and broken to permit the accurate passage of potassium ions through the selectivity filter and three other constriction points, one called the G-loop where final potassium gating is thought to occur. The constrictions, as narrow as 1/5 of an Angstrom, act like gates that block everything until the right potassium ion has been authenticated. Here’s a taste of the precision: 

In conclusion, our human Kir2.1 channel cryo-EM structure describes a well-connected interaction networkbetween the PIP2-binding site residues, R218 and K219, and the G-loop region (E303) via residues R312 and H221. Our data suggest that the conformational changes required for the G-loop opening are most likely controlled by PIP2 binding. The replacement of R312 with histidine leads to a complete loss of the interaction network described above. Therefore, the interaction network integrity between subunits seems necessary for the proper allosteric transmission of the signal between R312 and the G-loop of the adjacent subunit upon PIP2 binding, which possibly allows the release of the constriction point on the G-loop. We can then hypothesize a PIP2-dependent G-loop gating mechanism that consists of the following: PIP2 binding triggers local conformational changes in the position of the side and main chains of R218 and K219, which, because of the structural proximity, lead to significant changes in the position of H221, displacing it laterally toward the intracellular medium. This movement would, in turn, cause E303 and R312 of the adjacent chain to move in the same direction, causing the G-loop to open. 

Without meaning to overdo the technical jargon, the design only becomes evident in the details. Once again, readers will look in vain for any mention of how this channel emerged or evolved. 

Zechariah ch.l the Bible in living English.

  

Zechariah ch.1 BibLE.

On the eighth new moon in the year two of Darius, Jehovah’s word came to the prophet Zecariah the son of Berekiah the son of ʽIddo, 2 “Jehovah was provoked at your fathers. 3 And say to them ‘Says Jehovah of Armies, Come back to me, quoth Jehovah of Armies, and I will come back to you, says Jehovah of Armies. 4 Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets called out “Says Jehovah of Armies, Come back from your bad courses and practices” and they did not hear nor listen to me, quoth Jehovah. 5 Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live forever? 6 But my words and my decrees with which I charged my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? and they turned back and said “As Jehovah of Armies designed to do to us, in accordance with our courses and practices, so he has done with us.”’”

7* On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month (the month of Shebat) in the year two of Darius, Jehovah’s word came to the prophet Zecariah the son of Berekiah the son of ʽIddo, 8** “I saw last night, and there was a man riding on a brown pony standing between the myrtles in the bog, and behind him ponies brown, sorrel, and white. 9 And I said ‘What are these, sir?’ and the angel that was speaking with me said to me ‘I will let you see what these are.’ 10 And the man standing between the myrtles answered ‘These are what Jehovah has sent to patrol the earth.’ 11 And they answered Jehovah’s angel that stood between the myrtles ‘We have patrolled the earth and find all the earth settled and quiet.’ 12 And Jehovah’s angel answered ‘Jehovah of Armies, how long before you will have any tenderness for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, to which you have been hostile these seventy years?’ 13 And Jehovah answered the angel that was speaking with me with kindly words, comforting words; 14 and the angel that was speaking with me said to me ‘Call out “Says Jehovah of Armies, I am greatly jealous for Jerusalem and Sion, 15 and I am greatly incensed with the nations that are at ease, because I had been a little incensed and they helped on to disaster. 16 So Jehovah says, I have come back to Jerusalem in tenderness; my house shall be built in it, quoth Jehovah of Armies, and a measuring-line shall be stretched over Jerusalem.” 17 Call out again “Says Jehovah of Armies, My cities shall again overflow with good things, and Jehovah will again comfort Sion and again choose Jerusalem.”’”

18 And I raised my eyes and saw, and there were four horns; 19* and I said to the angel that was speaking with me “What are these?” and he said to me “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.” 20 And Jehovah showed me four smiths; 21** and I said “What are these coming to do?” and he said “These are the horns that have scattered Judah so that not a man raised his head; and these have come to sharpen blades to knock off the horns of the nations that raised horns against the country of Judah to scatter it.”

Re: a diagnosis of the state of OOL science; We've got bad news and worse news.

An Optimistic Solution to the Mystery of Life’s Origin 

Walter Bradley

Casey Luskin 

Editor’s note: We have been delighted to present a series by Walter Bradley and Casey Luskin on the question, “Did Life First Arise by Purely Natural Means?” This is the ninth and final entry in the series, a modified excerpt from the recent book The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos. Find the full series so far here. 

One might think that, in this series, we have been overly pessimistic in our analysis of the current status of origin-of-life research. But consider what five prestigious origin-of-life thinkers say about the current status of origin-of-life research:

Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jack Szostak: “It is virtually impossible to imagine how a cell’s machines, which are mostly protein-based catalysts called enzymes, could have formed spontaneously as life first arose from non-living matter…Thus, explaining how life began entails a serious paradox.”1

Harvard chemist George Whitesides: “Most chemists believe, as do I, that life emerged spontaneously from mixtures of molecules in the prebiotic Earth. How? I have no idea… We need a really good new idea.”2 “I don’t understand how you go from a system that’s random chemicals to something that becomes, in a sense, a Darwinian set of reactions that are getting more complicated spontaneously. I just don’t understand how that works.”3

“Origin of Life” entry in the Springer Encyclopedia of Astrobiology by Mexican biologist Antonio Lazcano: “A century and a half after Darwin admitted how little was understood about the origin of life, we still do not know when and how the first living beings appeared on Earth.”4

Richard Dawkins, leading evolutionary biologist and New Atheist: “The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple…The fact that it did not — the fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing — is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.”5

Eugene Koonin, a prestigious biologist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information: “The origin of life is one of the hardest problems in all of science, but it is also one of the most important. Origin-of-life research has evolved into a lively, inter-disciplinary field, but other scientists often view it with skepticism and even derision. This attitude is understandable and, in a sense, perhaps justified, given the ‘dirty’ rarely mentioned secret: Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching or even derision. This attitude is understandable and, in a sense, perhaps justified, given the ‘dirty’ rarely mentioned secret: Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching (or even approaching) the ultimate goal, the origin of life field is a failure — we still do not have even a plausible coherent model, let alone a validated scenario, for the emergence of life on Earth. Certainly, this is due not to a lack of experimental and theoretical effort, but to the extraordinary intrinsic difficulty and complexity of the problem. A succession of exceedingly unlikely steps is essential for the origin of life, from the synthesis and accumulation of nucleotides to the origin of translation; through the multiplication of probabilities, these make the final outcome seem almost like a miracle.”6 

An Alternative Solution  

But there is an alternative solution to the information sequence problem and the mystery of life’s origin — and it has the benefit of being based upon our uniform experience with how information arises. I (Walter Bradley) and my coauthors hinted at this solution in the original edition of The Mystery of Life’s Origin, published in 1984, wherein we observed, “We know by experience that intelligent investigators can synthesize proteins and build genes” and concluded that “intelligence is the authentic source of the information in the biological world.”7 In 2020, Discovery Institute published an updated edition of The Mystery of Life’s Origin, and all involved in the project were struck by how few changes were needed, owing to the fact that little meaningful progress had been made in the field of origin-of-life research over the previous 35 years. Stephen C. Meyer, James Tour, Brian Miller, and other scientists also contributed chapters updating the arguments.  

A Last Word from Meyer 

As the baton is passed to the next generation of ID theorists, it’s worth giving Meyer, a Cambridge University-trained philosopher of science, the last word as his chapter in the 2020 edition of Mystery expanded our arguments that ID is the only known cause for the information-rich biomolecules required for the origin of life: 

[O]ur uniform experience affirms that specified information — whether inscribed in hieroglyphs, written in a book, encoded in a terrestrial radio signal, or produced in an RNA-world “ribozyme engineering” experiment — always arises from an intelligent source, from a mind and not a strictly material process. So the discovery of the functionally specified digital information in DNA and RNA provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of these molecules. Whenever we find specified information and we know the causal story of how that information arose, we always find that it arose from an intelligent source. It follows that the best, most likely explanation for the origin of the specified, digitally encoded information in DNA and RNA is that it too had an intelligent source. Intelligent design best explains the specified genetic information necessary to produce the first living cell.8 

ID theorists thus propose that the action of an intelligent agent was required for the origin of the first living cell. In keeping with their materialistic outlook, meanwhile, mainstream origin-of-life theorists still maintain, as they must, that a self-replicating cell arose naturally. Darwinian evolution then took things the rest of the way and allowed the grand diversity of living organisms to evolve.  

Notes 

1.Alonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szostak, “Life on Earth,” Scientific American (September 2009), 54-61.

2.George M. Whitesides, “Revolutions in Chemistry: Priestley Medalist George M. Whitesides’ Address,” Chemical and Engineering News 85 (March 26, 2007), 12-17.

3.Conor Myhrvold, “Three Questions for George Whitesides,” MIT Technology Review (September 3, 2012), https://www.technologyreview.com/2012/09/03/184017/three-questions-for-george-whitesides/ (accessed November 18, 2020).

4.Antonio Lazcano, “Origin of Life,” Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, eds. M. Gargaud et al. (Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2011), 1184.

6.Richard Dawkins, The Ancestors Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 613.

7.Eugene V. Koonin, The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution (Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press, 2011), 391.

8.Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, and Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (Dallas, TX: Lewis and Stanley, 1984), 193, 197.

9. Stephen C. Meyer, “Evidence of Intelligent Design in the Origin of Life,” The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy (Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press, 2020), 455-456. 

On time

From the standpoint of the scriptures time is purely abstract, qualia not quanta that is to say it is purely discriptive. Thus time as understood from the bible's(I e JEHOVAH'S) standpoint has no beginning any more than numbers or color  had a beginning. The equating of the beginning of the physical universe with a beginning of time ,space and energy is unscriptural  potential energy has always existed within God 

Isaiah40:26KJV"26Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth." 

Thus the visible creation is an infinitesimal actualisation of JEHOVAH'S limitless potential. 

The bible does not speak of the creation as being ex nihilo out of nothing  but ex auto  out of him i.e JEHOVAH 

1Corinthians8:6KJV"6But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom((Grk.ex hou) are all things," the visible creation is not the beginning of JEHOVAH'S creation the scriptures speak of a higher creation that preceded the one accessible to man's senses 

Hebrews9:11KJV"But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation." Also 

Proverbs8:22NJB"Yahweh created me, first-fruits of his fashioning, before the oldest of his works."  

Note too this passage from the book of Job which demonstrates that JEHOVAH was definitely not alone before the physical creation. 

Job38:4-7NJB"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me, since you are so well-informed!

5 Who decided its dimensions, do you know? Or who stretched the measuring line across it?

6 What supports its pillars at their bases? Who laid its cornerstone

7 to the joyful concert of the morning stars and unanimous acclaim of the sons of God? "

 

 He was accompanied by a family of appreciative offspring prior to the creation of man and the universe that would become man's permanent home. 

Too speak of a concrete reality as existing beyond time is to utter an absurdity. Apart from time there can be no temporal distinctions hence nothing can sensibly proclaimed to be before or after time itself. And of course if time is a creation then it not only has a beginning but an end and thus free moral agency is impossible not only for man but for God himself we are all imprisoned in the delusion of choice including time's maker. In such a universe would even the concept moral rectitude be possible?

Christendom continues to be an embarrassment to God and Christ.

 Moscow patriarch: Russian war dead have their sins forgiven

The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church says Russian soldiers who die in the line of duty in Ukraine have all of their sins forgiven

ByPETER SMITH Associated Press

September 27, 2022, 3:53 PM

 soldiers who die in the line of duty in Ukraine have all of their sins forgiven, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church proclaimed in a sermon, comparing their sacrificial death to that of Jesus.

The assertion, made on Sunday, ratchets up Moscow Patriarch Kirill's already staunch support for Russia's war on Ukraine since its beginning in February.

Kirill has characterized the war as part of a larger metaphysical struggle against an encroaching liberal West, which he depicts as demanding gay pride parades. He has echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s depiction of Ukraine as spiritually and politically tied to Russia through their common medieval roots.

But Kirill's latest words raise the rhetorical stakes at a time when Russia has begun mobilizing reservists and has taken steps to annex parts of eastern Ukraine in the wake of military losses to Ukrainian forces.

“If someone, driven by a sense of duty, the need to fulfill an oath, remains true to his calling and dies in the line of military duty, then he undoubtedly commits an act that is tantamount to a sacrifice,” Kirill said in the sermon. 

  He sacrifices himself for others," Kirill said. "And therefore we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed.”

He compared the sacrifice to that of Jesus on the cross.

His words came even as thousands of Russians have sought to avoid the chance for such martyrdom — leaving the country by land and air rather than being swept up in the mobilization.

Critics of the war were appalled by Kirill's valorization of soldiers fighting in what much of the West has denounced as a war of aggression, accompanied by alleged human rights abuses.

Kirill replaced the Christian concept of martyrdom “with the idea of religious terrorism,” said the Rev. Cyril Hovorun, an Orthodox priest, native of Ukraine and professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism at University College Stockholm.Martyrs sacrifice their own lives, but religiously motivated terrorists ”sacrifice their lives and the lives of others," said Hovorun, founder of Orthodox Against War, a project launched after the start of the war. “And the (Russian Orthodox Church) is trying to find an excuse for this activity.”

The patriarch is speaking to an audience of one, Hovorun said.

“I don’t know whom can he convince, because the Russians are listening to him less and less,” Hovorun said. “However, I think the main addressee of Kirill’s messages is Putin. Kirill, through these messages, communicates to Putin: I am with you."

Kirill repeatedly described the war as “fratricidal" and prayed that it not destroy “the single spiritual space of Holy Russia."

But his unswerving support for the war has already helped precipitate a historic rupture in that space. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the majority religion in both countries. The Urainian Orthodox Church — which had remained loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate until this year, even when other Orthodox in Ukraine had broken away — declared its independence in May. By then, many priests and bishops had ceased commemorating Kirill in their public worship, a ritually potent snub.

———

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Ps. 2Peter2:2NIV"Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute."